


The King who Knelt

by Kriseis



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-18
Updated: 2012-12-18
Packaged: 2017-11-21 10:44:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/596821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kriseis/pseuds/Kriseis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Torrhen Stark marched south with every intention of meeting Aegon Targaryen in battle, but that was before he saw the dragons.<br/>---------<br/>There must always be a Stark in Winterfell.<br/>He thinks of what happened to Harren the Black and the Gardner Kings, and of the Houses who will never return to their halls. Perhaps, in this, he is making his father proud.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The King who Knelt

**Author's Note:**

> Started this a while back, but finished after the recent release of the excerpt from World of Ice and Fire, which gave me the information that let me complete this accurately.

            He doesn't know what he expected a dragon to look like, but it isn’t this.

The other kings of Westeros have knelt to this Valyrian conqueror, and Torrhen Stark, King in the North, is beginning to understand why. When the first Houses began to fall, he’d put it down to a superior army, and called his banners. He has 30,000 men at his back, and they will die at his command.  
  
What has he done to deserve this loyalty?  
  
His father was another matter. His father was been a great king, and a greater man. Torrhen isn’t lying to himself; he is neither of these things. He has not been a poor king. He has kept every castle well fed through the winters, and he has never failed to aid a holdfast against the ironmen when they come reaving. Still, he has done no great deeds to earn this unwavering loyalty. He knows that this many men answered the call not out of loyalty to him personally, but to his father and his House.  
  
Looking across the barren field, he surveys his enemy. The opposing force is perhaps half the size of his own, and under any other circumstances, Torrhen would not be worried. But the years of strategizing with his maester have never prepared him to contend with a dragon.  
  
Balerion the Black Dread is aptly named. He - it? The maesters say a dragon is neither male nor female. It lies near the back of its master’s host, but even from here it is gargantuan. As he stares, the massive eyelids suddenly slide open and a red slitted pupil seems to gaze directly at him. He stiffens, and his direwolf growls at his side.  
  
A small group breaks begins to make its way across the open ground. Torrhen steps forward to meet them. When they reach him, he clasps his brother’s arm and gestures for him to follow - the men may be loyal, but they like to talk. They enter his tent and he orders his guards to keep the footmen away.  
  
Only when he has done this does he speak. “Well?"  
  
Brandon Snow shakes his head softly. “My plan was foolishness. Targaryen could decimate our forces with the dragon alone."  
  
Torrhen closes his eyes. He doesn’t question his brother’s judgement; they have always been far too alike to differ in such an essential opinion, and in any case, he’s feared this from the moment he set eyes on the dragon.  
  
When they’d first marched, Brandon had suggested that perhaps they could kill the dragon with some poison or stealthy blade, before any battle broke out. The plan had seemed promising, and he’d sent his brother and three trusted maesters across under the pretense of treating with Aegon, but really to get a closer look at the beast. He hadn’t seen the dragon until they’d left, but when he did, he knew in his heart that all was lost.  
  
His eyes fly open.  
  
          _No_. No, it isn’t. He can not hold the North against a dragon, but at least he knows it.  
  
He can not save the freedom of his people. What he can save is their lives.  


* * *

 

           He stands in the middle of the field. Beside him stands his direwolf, behind him, his brother. They both know what he has to do. They aren’t lying to themselves; this is what he will be remembered for. This solitary act.

           He closes his eyes and remembers the thirty thousand men in his camp. Men whose loyalty he inherited, but never earned. Men who call him king.

           No one will ever call his son a king.

           He knows how Aegon Targaryen deals with those who submit. Torrhen will be named Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North. At least his children will inherit his castle, if not his kingdom. The crypts will continue to house his family for generations to come. (When he is buried, he wonders, will his statue wear a crown?) His father’s half-forgotten voice echoes in his ear. _There must always be a Stark in Winterfell._ He thinks of what happened to Harren the Black and the Gardener Kings, and of the Houses who will never return to their halls. Perhaps, in this, he is making his father proud.

           Aegon himself walks out to meet him. There are no pretenses. They both know what Torrhen is about to do. As he removed his bronze-and-iron crown, however, he thinks he sees a glimmer of respect in the silver king’s eyes. The North is the first kingdom to fall without bloodshed. Some, even in the North itself, will see this as weakness. Aegon Targaryen sees it as a strength - the mark, even, of a true king. For Torrhen is doing the best he can, not for himself or even for his house, but for his people.

  
           Torrhen Stark will be always remembered as the King who Knelt, but in kneeling, he has saved them all.


End file.
